Traditionally, a customer desiring to obtain film prints for pictures taken with a non-digital camera takes the film roll to a “photolab” which develops the film into film prints using a chemical process. The photolab may either develop the film on site, or send the film roll to an off-site film developer who returns the prints to the photolab for pick-up by the customer.
Recently, with the introduction of the digital image processing technology, new business methods have arisen for producing film prints from digital images. Several well known film processing companies have developed proprietary scanning technology which enables photolabs to scan film negatives in order to produce digital images, which can then be used to fulfill film print orders. Many of these film processing companies also provide the photolabs with the ability to send or upload the images over the Internet to the company by logging onto the company's proprietary website. The images are then stored in a database or archived so that the images can be viewed online. In order to view the images, the photolab provides the film customer with an identification number which the customer uses to obtain access to the images after logging on the company's proprietary website. In this manner the customer can preview the images to be printed and/or to be sent digitally via email to someone else. Since the images are also stored in the company's database, the customer is also given the opportunity to organize the images by creating photo albums, which also can be shared electronically with others.
Similarly, several other “photo-sharing sites” have entered the market. Essentially, the photo-sharing sites offer the same services as the film processing companies, but in some instances on a smaller scale. However, the photo-sharing sites do not offer customers the ability to produce traditional film prints using a non-digital, chemical process.
A further important development is that photolabs are now attempting to continue to offer traditional, non-digital film processing and to simultaneously compete with the large film processing companies and photo-sharing sites by offering the photolab's customers, who may have purchased digital cameras, the ability to process digital images. Unfortunately, since the photolabs do not have the expensive technological infrastructure to process, store, and retrieve digital images, the labs have been forced to form alliances with, rather than compete with, the film companies and the photo-sharing sites. Naturally, these alliances fail to provide the photolabs with the ability to offer competitive pricing for digital film processing since the pricing is established, for instance, by the film company. Equally significant, if not more important, is the fact that the photolab is not able to control the branding and marketing of its digital film service. Although the photolab can develop its own website for its print film service, the digital film processing aspect of its business is controlled by the website of the film company, which advertises the products and services of the film company. Another limitation is that the film company controls the photolab's ability to satisfy its customer's print fulfillment needs because the company limits the choice of print fulfillers to those provided on the film company's website.
As a result, the photolabs cannot compete successfully with the film companies and the photo-sharing sites, who are able to capture photolab customers seeking digital image processing and film fulfillment. As customers continue to shift from buying traditional film cameras to digital cameras, the photolabs will continue to lose those customers unless the labs can establish their own identity in the digital image processing industry and can offer a competitively priced service. The present invention discloses a system and business model which enables each photolab to offer all aspects of digital film processing and print fulfillment at competitive prices and with the ability to promote and establish the labs' own identity as a film processing company. The invention accomplishes this objective without requiring the lab to purchase any expensive and complex computer equipment and, at the same time, allows the photolab to continue to provide personal service to its existing customers who do not have digital image processing needs.